Volleyball team loses to Cotter as season winds down

Gracie Schmidt of the Knights attacks vs. Mayo at a tournament in Rochester. CHRISTINE VREEMAN/BLUFF COUNTRY NEWSPAPER GROUP

"A terribly disappointing game" is all head coach Jackie Whitacre said about last week's loss to Cotter (0-3: 21-25, 7-25, 5-25). With that loss to the Ramblers, the Lady Knights finished at the bottom of the Three Rivers Conference with an 0-11 record. Cotter finished the TRC season at 1-10.

A 1-3 finish at the Century Tournament over the weekend left Kingsland at 5-22 for the regular season. This past Monday the team traveled to Houston for the first round of the 1A East Sub-section Tournament. The Knights were seeded No. 10, Houston received the No. 7 seed.

In the Cotter match, the gals had a pretty good serving night, 28 for 30 as a team, but didn't have enough of them. Delivering 100 percent of their serves were Rialie Fenske (5/5), Hannah Pruter (5/5), Haley Colton (3/3), Brianna Musel (5/5), Gina Blanchard (4/4) and Alayna Meskill( 1/1).

In the hitting department, Pruter (3 kills, .429) and Taylor Link (2 kills, .147) were the only Knights to have a positive hitting efficiency. Everyone else was in the negative numbers. As a team, Kingsland had nine kills and 12 errors, with a minus .053 hitting efficiency, which is likely part of the frustration and disappointment that coach Whitacre felt.

At the Rochester Century Tournament, the Knights won one and lost three in the end of the year tournament. The lone win came against Minneapolis Patrick Henry (2-0: 25-17, 25-13). The Lady Knights lost to Rochester Mayo (12-25, 11-25), Rochester John Marshall (0-2:23-25, 10-25) and Rochester Lourdes (21-25, 18-25). No individual stats were available from the tournament.

If the Knights won their match against Houston, they will travel to No. 2 seed, Mabel-Canton, Thursday night, for a 7 p.m. match. The Cougars had a bye in the first round.